1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector. More particularly, the present invention relates to a card connector.
2. Description of the Related Art
With rapid progress in the electronic technologies, many types of electronic products are widely used in our office and house in our day to day activities. In particular, the use of personal computer in our home has the greatest impact. At present, personal computers can be roughly classified into desktop computers and portable computers. The portable computers are further divided into notebook computer, pocket computer and tablet computer.
To reduce the size and weight of a portable computer such as a notebook computer, most computer peripheral devices are connected to a notebook computer externally on a need to use basis. Hence, many notebook computers are equipped with a number of connection interfaces for engaging with different peripheral devices. The most common types of connection interfaces found in a notebook computer include PC card, USB and IEEE 1394, where PC card is a later version of the personal computer memory card international association (PCMCIA). According to the function, PC card can be categorized into network card, data card, sound card, memory card and so on. Thus, a notebook computer is often equipped with a card connector with the PC card specification so that a PC card of whatever function can be inserted to communicate with the notebook computer.
It is to be noted that a human body is often a storage area for varying amount of electrical charges due to friction. When a user inserts a PC card into or remove a PC card from the card connector of a notebook computer, some electrostatic charges will be transferred to the card connector via the fingers and the metallic casing of the card. As the amount of electrostatic charges in the card connector reaches a threshold, an electrostatic discharge (ESD) between the card connector and the circuit board will occur. As a result, signal transmission between the notebook computer and the PC card will be unstable. To prevent such electrostatic discharge, the metallic guiding frame of the card connector is electrically connected to a ground terminal of the circuit board.
Conventionally, the guiding frame of the card connector uses a pair of grounding washers on each side of the frame to contact the grounding pads on the circuit board and a pair of metallic screws to tighten the grounding washer to the circuit board. In other words, the metallic guiding frame of the card connector is electrically connected to the grounding terminal of the circuit board. However, if there is a rapid accumulation of electrostatic charges in the guiding frame, this type of grounding may not act fast enough to conduct all the electrostatic charges away and prevent an undesirable electrostatic discharge.